Rising Rent Puts Final Payment in Doubt KEVIN POSTEMA, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Postema is the editor of Apartment Age magazine, a publication of The Apartment Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, an apartment owners' service group. Mail your questions on any aspect of apartment living to AAGLA, 12012 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. 9025

Home Inventory Is Crucial After Fire, Theft ALBIN RENAUER and MARCIA STEWART, SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Renauer and Stewart are editors at Nolo Press in Berkeley. This article was adapted from "Nolo's Personal RecordKeeper" software.

Push Students--and Never Give Up On Them : JAMES C. FLEMING JEFF YIP, James C. Fleming is director of the USC Neighborhood Academic
Initiative. The organization, in cooperation with the Los Angeles Unified School District, operates the USC Pre-College Enrichment Academy. Each year, 60 qualifying seventh-graders are randomly selected from James Foshay and John Adams junior high schools. The students, who are in the program through high school, take classes each weekday morning at USC. In the May, 1992, California Test of Basic Skills, the average percentile scores in reading and math for the program's Foshay seventh-graders were 46 and 72, respectively. Foshay students not in the program, in comparison, scored 28 and 37. Fleming, who has a doctorate from Harvard University in administration planning and social policy, was interviewed by Jeff Yip.

The Mae in Madonna CARL ANTHONY, Anthony, a historian, is the author of the two-volume, "First
Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives & Their Power, 1789-1990" (Morrow, 1991). He is preparing a documentary tribute to Mae West